Math Mania consisted of a series of individual and group challenges. Students investigated simple problems such as "assuming the earth orbits the sun once every 365 days, how many revolutions does the earth make on its own axis in one year?" You may think the answer is 365 but it isn't. A more complicated problem they investigated was "200 passengers board a completely sold out flight, one-by-one. The first person to board has lost his ticket so he chooses a random seat. Each subsequent person sits in the correct seat if it is available, or a random seat if it is not. Determine the probability that the final person to board the aeroplane sits in the correct seat".
The leadership conference was run by the head of school at BIFS, Mr. Kevin Baker. Topics covered included: what is leadership?, emotional intelligence, the differences between leadership and management, and philosophy of leadership. Students were encouraged to create an individual philosophy of leadership and write their own statements. They made action plans based on their goals to improve the situation at their schools. Sara and Hanami chose "two schools together" as their topic and made their own action plan. The plans were shared, commented, advised, and questioned by other participants from different schools.
The leadership students concluded their sessions with a trip to the science museum. After that both the math mania and leadership participants took part in an engineering challenge. Students had to design a bridge which met certain criteria using only a limited amount of resources. Sara and her team got 1st place for designing the most efficient bridge.
The host families were very accommodating and students had a great time. The conference was an excellent opportunity for our talented mathematicians and future leaders to work together with other like-minded students from other schools.
Rie Matsuda, OIS Japanese
Kevin Bertman, OIS mathematics
more math mania and leadership photos (courtesy of YIS)